There are many tricks and tools that narrators use to make books come to life, and a big part of many stories are the voices of the cast of characters. Here are some of the ways that audiobook narrators like myself make that happen.

Determining the Voice

What kind of voice a character has is determined by a few things, some are obvious and some are more technical.

First and most simply, how the character is described by the author is the single most influential factor in selecting a voice. There are a number of elements that I’ll discuss below.

Next is their relationship to other characters, and in this case I don’t mean narratively but rather which scenes do they share with other characters and how often. This is key in ‘casting’ the book and making sure that all of the characters are distinct, unique, and won’t get confused with others.

Then I consider the sustainability of the voice. Typically, a main character will have a simpler vocal quality that is more or less close to my own, while a minor character or one that only appears once may have a more extreme voice.

Then finally, I’ll ask if the author has ideas about how they’d like a character to sound. Sometimes they’ll offer up an actor or movie character they had in mind when writing the book or something like that, which can be very helpful in forming a clear idea as to who that character is and how they behave.

A quick sidebar. I’ve found that “casting” my narrations with real people, actors, or film characters to model my own performance off of to be a really great way to go about making the characters very specific and distinct.

Character Descriptions

The first thing a narrator does when working on a book is read it. There are many obvious reasons for this, but among them is to look for clues as to how we might perform or voice a character. The places I look for these clues are in descriptions of the character’s:

A lot of details can be gathered from the text and from reading between the lines, which help to make a unique character.

Voice
Behavior
Word choice and vocabulary
Background and history

While compiling little ‘portfolios’ for each character, I believe it’s important to maintain the perspective of an empathetic observer. As a narrator and performer, if my own biases and judgements filter into and/or influence the performance of the character, I’m doing the author, the character, and the listener a disservice. This is a much broader conversation, but in the context of this article important to mention. To faithfully and honestly voice each character, to the best of my ability it needs to be *their* voice and not my idea of their voice.

Going back to clue hunting, as an example, let’s unpack a few lines:

“Hello,” they mumbled through a southern drawl.
From a voice seasoned by thousands of cigarettes came the reply, “Hello yourself.”

Voice

Okay, two great descriptions of their voices. The first person has a ‘southern drawl,’ the second is a heavy smoker. Clear, easy direction that we can put into our performances of each character.

Behavior

As far as their behavior, there’s some subtler points to take note of. The first person is mumbling. Are they shy? Hesitant? Reluctant? Do they know the second person? And then the second person gives an atypical reply. Is this a curt response? Are they mean? Do they just want to be alone? Is this actually a joke between old friends? It’s hard to know what this interaction means about our characters without more context (i.e. reading the rest of the story), but you can see that it’s raising a lot of questions. By taking note of these questions a narrator can build a rich vocal performance or each character.

Word Choice and Vocabulary

Arguably less of a contributing factor than the way a character behaves and actual descriptions of how they sound, however it can be helpful to think about why characters use the words they choose to use and why. Whether someone says “loquacious,” “wordy,” or “talkative as hell” tells us something about them.

Background and History

Where we come from, who we are in our blood and roots, and the road we traveled to where we are now are all hugely influential in the people we are today. It’s no different for the characters in a narration. All of these details are very helpful places to look when developing a specific image of who this person is and ultimately how we might perform and give voice to them.

Making Voices Distinct and Unique

Once I’ve got a general idea as to who a character is, then I need to make sure I’m making them different from every other character in the book. Because I’m only one person with one set of vocal cords, well I’m somewhat limited as to the number of distinct voices I can perform. But, here are some ‘flavors’ I adjust or shift in my voice to make room for as many characters as possible.

Accents

Easy. If you’re good at accents and the book allows for it, this is a great and easy way to differentiate characters. One’s from Britain, another’s from Russia, and the last from the US? Boom, you’ve got three different characters.

Pitch

If one character has a higher or lower voice than the other, it’s easier to tell them apart. This doesn’t have to be dramatic, especially when performing a gender other than what your voice presents as. The pitch of your voice combines with all of the other components to make a distinct character.

I imagine ‘mixing’ my characters’ voices on something like this. Pluging them in then tweaking the sliders until it works—both generally and in individual scenes

Rate of Speech

One character talks fast, the other slow. Again, it’s easier to tell them apart. This can be a character trait full stop (the character is really low energy or methodical and always talks slowly) or it can be used situationally (the character is agitated and is talking quicker than usual).

Texture/Vocal Quality

Breathy vs Booming. Silky vs Gravelly. Light vs Heavy. This can be fairly interpretive, and should not to be confused with high versus low pitch.

I like to think of all of these components as sliders or dials. I’ll plug my initial idea of the character into it, and adjust these sliders as I need them to make sure I’m giving space to all of the other characters too. Small differences as long as they’re consistent make a big difference to the listener’s experience of a character.

Keeping Voices Consistent

Recording voice memos or portfolios as I read through the book is a great way to practice the character’s voice and compile information about them.

This can be challenging, particularly if the book has a large number of characters. The way many narrators will handle this is to make verbal notes on the characters in the characters’ voices. (Jim Dale famously used this technique when voicing the Harry Potter series.) While reading the book, the narrator records a little voice memo and labels it as that character. As you come across more information about them, add a bit more to the voice memo. By the time you’ve finished reading the book through, you’ve not only compiled a deep and thorough dossier on the character’s personality, but you’ve given yourself the opportunity to practice and hone the voice you’ll use for them.

Another method that I use, is any time a character speaks for the first time as I’m recording the book I’ll leave a ‘marker’ in the audio file and label it with the character’s name. This way the next time they speak, I can simply click back to that marker and make sure I’m staying consistent.

Still Just One Person

At the end of the day, an audiobook narrator is just one person with one voice, and everyone listening to the book knows that. Ultimately, you’re not ‘becoming’ these characters, and you don’t need to try to. Rather, you’re one person telling a story in the most engaging way possible, and honoring the voice of each character as best you can. Our imaginations are beautiful and incredibly powerful, and I believe trusting the listener’s to fill in the gaps is part of what makes books and audiobooks such a wonderful piece of art to take part in.